


blue lips

by Errantmushroom



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Love, coming home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 23:42:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9351815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Errantmushroom/pseuds/Errantmushroom
Summary: When Jon slides a bundle across the table, Lyanna purses her lips. Her fingers pull at the cloth, gentler than she feels, revealing a rippled blade and a hilt that was once bear and is now wolf.(Or war makes ghosts of us all.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Arcturus](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7434107) by [grayglube](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayglube/pseuds/grayglube). 



She thinks there are things she used to know buried in the slush beneath her boots.  She thinks they beat like burning hearts against the inside of their solid, frozen casket.  But Lyanna is only another who has lost, who is lost, and she has never believed in ghosts. If she walks long enough or far enough, perhaps they will cease believing in her too.

 

If she wanders.

 

If she strays.

 

The boughs of pine, fragrant and fat, embrace her as a long time friend.  She can almost pretend that this is the truth, but there is the sour taste in her mouth of a girl turned woman, and she knows she has become only a stranger.

 

(Her hands drip red, red, red).

 

She stays out long after the sun melts molten, sinks to wherever suns go when they are not burning gold and hot and bright for their subjects.  She stays out until the sky above her has turned to blue-black velvet, all studded with stars.  It is the same color as the frozen ocean on which her whole life is anchored deep.

 

When she returns to the keep trailing furs hemmed with ice and so pale should could be death herself, there is not a one who speaks of it to the Lady Mormont.  Her ventures are her own.  There are worse ways to keep the dead in their tombs.  Those who haven't seen it with their own eyes have heard it from the mouths of women and men less fortunate than themselves.

 

And so no one says a word, but there is a fire, and Lady Mormont settles into creaking wood before it and sips ale from a mug and picks chunks of fat-dripping meat to chew.  Before long her furs are making puddles, but it is not until they are very nearly dried that she makes her way to her quarters and settles down for something like sleep but not quite as deep, lest her dreams descend to haunt her.

 

Still, when she closes her eyes against the night, death comes to greet her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Lady Mormont.”

 

Lyanna meets the young woman’s gaze (how open, how steadfast, how fearless) and tilts her head just so.

 

“You’ve a visitor at the keep. The maester-”

 

Her hand dams the words spilling from the serving girl’s mouth.  “An unexpected visitor,” She raises one dark brow as though a challenge.  “And so I will return when I am ready.  No sooner.”

 

No one follows her through the thornbrush and frost.  No one calls for her through the pine.

 

Still, she is not surprised to see a man waiting for her between the trees. He is tall enough that the branches dig their fingers into his curls.  His eyes are cold, old grey and his mouth is twisted up, part grimace part grin.  She wonders if he can feel the cold, Jon Snow all dressed in black.

 

If she is a girl turned woman, Jon Snow is a boy turned legend.

 

When her eyes meet his, she does not smile and he does not flinch.  They are not ghosts, neither of them, but nor are they as human as they once were.

 

“You've come.”  She bares her teeth and it is still not a smile.

 

“Aye,” He says.  “I’ve come.”

 

Perhaps if she had grown to be a different woman she might have yelled, let loose a banshee’s wail (why've you come, I've already given everything I have and yet still you ask for more).  She might have throttled him against the bark until his blood turned cold as the air.

 

But she was not that woman, she'd never been and she'd never be.

 

“Let's get back then.”  Her words are less a sigh and more a growl.  “Or have you come all this way to freeze your bollocks off in this damned wood?”

 

Jon seems to consider this, humming between lips pressed shut against the cold.  “Well, I s’ppose there are worse ways to go.”

 

Lyanna nods once, because there are, of course there are, but she comes to the wood to forget not to make light, and so Jon Snow follows her back to the keep and there steps are so silent they might well be ghosts anyway.

 

At the keep there is wine of which Jon partakes and ale of which Lyanna does.  She does not ask why he's come and he does not give an answer.  They speak of harsh winds and hard frosts.  It was meant to be better, the After, but there is a word they do not say that hangs over them with the wraiths and the dead.

 

When Jon slides a bundle across the table, Lyanna purses her lips.  Her fingers pull at the cloth, gentler than she feels, revealing a rippled blade and a hilt that was once bear and is now wolf.

 

She blinks back against the heat that flares behind her eyes.  “Why?”

 

(And if she sounds only a very little broken, no one says a word.)

 

“The blade has the good fortune of having a home that yet stands.”

 

“Longclaw has not called Bear Island home in a very long time, Lord Snow.”  She stows her hands away into the folds between her furs.  “I believe its home is with you now, wherever that may be.”

 

It is no well-kept secret, how the end of things played out.  The dragon queen come to play at war with her brood.

 

They say that she offered him not her hand, but to rule at her side as an equal.

 

They say he fled in the night.

 

(The truth is such: she is queen of only ash, he is king of only snow)

 

“Wherever that may be.”  He echoes.

 

“Yes, well, you're both here now, aren't you?”

 

He smiles and it is as terrible as it is lovely. “For now.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Lyanna has seen plenty enough name days and just as many men.  She could have borne a babe but she has not.

 

They say there is ice in her blood, their little she-bear.

 

She has let them press their hot lips against her throat.  She has let them drive themselves so deep within her she thought she'd have to carve them out to be free again.

 

After, she could never bring herself to lie against them.  The living sun beneath their flesh scorches her wherever they touch and she runs, always runs, when the sky is still dark and the stars still leer.

 

Jon Snow does not burn when he kisses her.

 

Perhaps there is ice in the his blood as well.

 

He bares his throat to her and she is proud and it flushes her face.  She colors the ivory column with her teeth: violent reds and stinging purples.

 

Her fingers pull at his tangles of coarse black hair until he hisses.  “I am not pretty.”  She growls.

 

When he does not answer immediately, she yanks his lovely hair again.  “No.”  It comes out in a gasp.

 

“I'll not make you my lord.”

 

“Good,” There is breathless laughter on his lips.  “I've been a king and a lord thrice over.  I'm done with titles, Lyanna.”

 

Flowers do not bloom this far north and Lyanna has dug herself from the frozen earth, thorn and root and evergreen.  There is no softness to her, nothing gentle, nothing sweet.  She has seen Jon Snow astride black scaled beast, carving his namesake with fire and fang.  She has seen him cut out the hearts of men when they no longer deserved to have them.  And now the white wolf, the dragon king, yields to her.

 

The bear inside her chest beats its paws against her ribs and bellows: like calls to like.  He kisses her lips, blue with the cold, and when their eyes meet it is like looking in the mirror.

 

And then he has her by her shoulders, long fingers digging into her back and pulling her furs until they pool around her waist.  And she does not ask why and she does not say no.  They shed their layers like secrets until there is nothing left but the bare flesh and the sting of truths not spoken.

 

(And if they both stay after, well, they'd not admit it's because it felt just a little like coming home.)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Arcturus by grayglube. Please read it. It is truly amazing.


End file.
